Review: 'Hot Tub Time Machine' is casual, hilarious fun

Imagine a pack of drunken man-boys remaking "Back to the Future" -- only instead of the characters time-traveling to 1955, they end up on the set of an R-rated straight-to-video ski-slope comedy from the '80s.

That sort of sums up the filthy, ramshackle vibe of the coarse-funny "Hot Tub Time Machine." It's about three friends (John Cusack, Craig Robinson, Rob Corddry) getting a do-over on their life-changing teenage mistakes at a ski resort in 1986, thanks to the patently ridiculous titular time-hopping device. Along for the ride are Cusack's mortified 20-year-old nephew (Clark Duke), who can't imagine a world without a Wide Web, and a mysterious mechanic (Chevy Chase) who gives advice so cryptic it's absolutely useless.

It's pretty fantastic to see Cusack return to raunchy comedy -- he hasn't been this fun to watch since his "High Fidelity"/"Grosse Pointe Blank" days -- and Robinson, Duke and especially Corddry make the most of their chance to show off after years of solid supporting work. (Also nice: The snarky '80s references and cameos, including appearances by a surly one-armed Crispin Glover and a gun-toting William "Karate Kid" Zabka.)

The movie's as casual as its lead characters' approach to changing history; it's also lewdly and frequently laugh-out-loud hilarious -- especially if you wasted any of your youth watching a certain brand of '80s comedy schlock on HBO at 2 a.m.